Tristan and Iseult

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  So they left the little bothie beside the stream, for the grass to grow fresh over the scars where the hearth fire had been, and went back to Tintagel and the King.

  It was torch-lighting time when they came to King Marc sitting in his High Seat with the stallion-carved foreposts; and he sat unmoving, his eyes upon them, as Tristan and Iseult walked up the empty Hall to stand before him.

  The silence dragged out long and heavy as the stillness between lightning flash and thunder peal. And a dog at the King’s feet whimpered, smelling grief and anger and love and hate hanging like the thunder in the air.

  At last the King said, ‘So you read my message.’

  ‘We read your message,’ Tristan said, ‘and we came.’

  ‘That is well,’ said the King. ‘Listen now; I will take the Queen back into my Hall, into my heart. As for you, Tristan, whom once I loved most dearly of all men in this world, I say to you only – “the world is wide”.’

  Tristan looked straight and long into the King’s eyes. ‘I had a hope that the way back was for me also, but it was only a small hope. The world is wide, as you say, my Lord the King.’

  ‘I will give you until tomorrow’s sun-up to gather what you would take with you and be gone from Tintagel. I give you three days to be out of Cornwall. You will never come back!’

  Tristan bowed his head, then raised it and looked once more straight at the King. ‘In three days I will be gone from Cornwall. But if ever harm or sorrow come to Iseult at your hands, I shall hear of it, and I shall come back!’

  Then Iseult spoke for the first time. ‘My Lord the King, if I am to be with you and be your wife again, I must end what has been between my Lord Tristan and me, not leave it hanging like a torn sleeve. Let you grant us a little time alone, to take our leave of each other.’

  The King pointed to a log on the fire already crumbling to white ash. ‘You have until that log burns through.’ And he rose and went to the inner doorway. But they knew that from the chamber beyond, he would hear when the log burned through and fell.

  When they were alone, they moved close together; but they had no goodbyes to say, for they had said them all so many times that they were empty. And Tristan said only, speaking at half breath, ‘I leave Bran with you. Love him for my sake.’

  And Iseult said, ‘He shall be dearer to me than anything else in Cornwall, because he is your gift. And for you also I have a gift,’ and she pulled from her finger a heavy gold ring formed of curiously twined and twisted serpents, that had come with her from Ireland. ‘If ever you are in sore enough need of me, send me this back, and I will come to you though you send from the other end of the world. But be careful how you send it, for if you do, then I will come, though it be the death of both of us.’

  And Tristan took the ring and kissed it, and stowed it in the breast of his outworn shirt.

  ‘One thing more,’ Iseult said. ‘Make me this promise, that all your life, if anything is asked of you in my name, you will do it. No matter how strange, or difficult, or perilous, or great, or small, if it be asked of you in the name of Iseult of Cornwall.’

  And this she asked so that she might know in her heart thereafter that she still held power over him, and power to call him back, even though she never used it to her dying day.

  And Tristan knew why she asked, and he promised, ‘It shall be as you ask.’

  Iseult set her hands on either side of his face and drew him close and looked into his eyes. ‘I do not ask. I set you under Geis, according to the custom of my own people, for remember, Iseult of Cornwall is an Irishwoman still. And remember also that if you break your Geis you break your own honour with it, and your own life, and maybe all that is left of mine as well.’

  The burned log collapsed with a slipping and rustling and a last shower of sparks, into the red heart of the fire.

  Tristan went back to his old lodging, and gathered his own clothes and few belongings that were still there, and put on his fine mail shirt, while Gorvenal brought horses from the stable. And at dawn he rode out from Tintagel and headed eastward into the sunrise, with Gorvenal riding at his side. He never saw King Marc again, save once when King Marc did not know of it, but the King’s sword was still in his scabbard and his own notched blade in the King’s.

  12

  War in Brittany

  TRISTAN AND GORVENAL wandered up and down Britain and through other lands; and many the adventures they had, until at last they came to Brittany, and a part of Brittany that had once been fair but was now a wilderness. For three days they rode through it, and saw halls and strongholds and the traces of fields; but the halls were roofless and their hearths cold, and the fields lost under docks and brambles. And in all the land nothing moved but the creatures of the wild.

  But on the third evening they came to a little chapel on a hill, and a hermit’s cell beside it; and from the hermit’s cell came the first gleam of firelight they had seen since they entered that land. So they rode towards it, and the old bent hermit came to the door, and asked, ‘What would you have of me, my sons?’

  ‘A night’s shelter,’ Tristan said. ‘A place by your fire, old father, since it seems there is no other warm hearth in all this land.’

  So that evening they sat by the hermit’s fire, though they would take nothing from his meagre store of food, but ate what little they had in their own saddlebags. And when they had eaten, Tristan asked the meaning of the desolation all about them.

  ‘Well may you ask,’ said the hermit, ‘for this land used to be as rich as any in the world, until sorrow came upon it . . .

  You must know, then, that our King, Hoel, has a most beautiful daughter, and she was sought in marriage by one of his vassal lords, Duke Jovelin of Nantes. The King refused him – some say he was too proud to give his daughter to a vassal; some say she was unwilling. Then Jovelin thought to take her by force, and he roused out many of the other nobles to join him against the King. They have laid waste the land as you see, they have broken down all the royal castles, except Carhaix; and there, in his last remaining stronghold, the King is even now besieged, with his son Karherdin and a few chiefs who remain true to him.’

  ‘And where is this Castle of Carhaix?’ asked Tristan.

  ‘Scarce two miles from here.’

  ‘Then if you will let us sleep by your fire tonight, it will be an easy ride in the morning.’

  ‘Dragons,’ said Gorvenal, ‘always there must be more dragons for you. Let you remember what came of the last time.’

  ‘I am remembering, and I am remembering,’ said Tristan, gentling his sword hilt.

  Next morning they took their leave of the hermit, and set out for Carhaix. They found Duke Jovelin’s warhost encamped round about, but seeing that they were but two horsemen, no one thought it worth while to turn them back, and so they came beneath the timber walls of the castle. The King himself – Tristan knew it must be the King by the golden crest on his helmet – stood on the ramparts, looking out over the rebel warhost, and Tristan brought his horse close and called up to him, ‘My Lord the King, have you use for two more swords?’

  The King looked down at him and laughed, like an old dogfox barking. ‘We have no use for two more mouths; supplies are short enough as it is. It was a valiant offer, strangers, but this is not your quarrel. Take my thanks with you and ride away.’

  ‘As to the mouths, my sword-brother and I have seen lean times before now, and we’re knowing well enough how to take a knot in our bellies. I am in need of a good quarrel – may I not have a share in yours?’

  And a tall ugly young man with sandy hair and a big nose and a laughing mouth, who stood close beside the King, said quickly, ‘Two good swords are worth half a loaf a day, my father; and if this bold stranger wants a share in our quarrel – well, it’s big enough, there’s no need to play the miser with it!’

  So in the end the timber gates were swung back just wide enough to let horse and rider through, while the warriors stood ready against a rush by
Jovelin’s men. And the first hand that came out to greet Tristan as he clattered over the gatesill with Gorvenal still behind him, was the big bony hand of the Prince Karherdin.

  But Tristan and Gorvenal were not the only riders to draw rein before the great gates of Carhaix that day, for a while after noon, a herald rode out from the rebel warhost, to bring a challenge from Duke Jovelin to any man in the castle who would come out to meet him in single combat.

  When he had received the message, the King said, ‘If I were but twenty years – but ten years – younger and quicker . . .’

  And the Prince Karherdin shrugged and said, ‘If I could do any good by taking up the challenge, I’d not hang back. But I know Jovelin’s fighting strength; there’s not a man in the kingdom to stand a moth’s chance in a candle flame, in single combat with that one.’

  And the rest of the warriors looked at each other and away again. And some half reached for their swords; but no one offered to take up the challenge.

  Then Tristan, who had waited for the others, feeling that they had first right, said, ‘My Lord the King, I have been but a few hours among you, but give me leave, none the less, to meet this Duke Jovelin. I have answered a like challenge before, against worse odds, and that time I had the victory.’

  So the herald went back from Carhaix with word that Tristan of Lothian (for he could no more be calling himself Tristan of Cornwall) would take up the challenge of Duke Jovelin, and come out to meet him an hour before sunset. And at the appointed time, the great gates opened again, and Tristan walked out, with his sword naked in his hand. And in the clear space below the walls, Duke Jovelin strode out to meet him. The westering sun jinked on their weapons, and their shadows streamed out from them sideways like the shadows of giants on the grass. And from the ramparts of Carhaix and the ranks of the rebel warhost, beseigers and defenders looked on.

  Then the heralds cried out the challenge and acceptance, and the fight began. It was a long and bitter struggle, slow and wary at first as when hounds circle each other seeking for an opening; both champions striving for position with the sun behind them and dazzling into the other’s eyes, then growing swifter and more fierce as they closed in and the blades began to ring together and the sparks to fly from their blows. Once Jovelin took a gash in the thigh, and once Tristan took a thrust in the shoulder; but for a long while neither could gain an advantage over the other. And then at last, as Tristan stepped back from a savage flurry of strokes, Jovelin, pressing after, missed his thrust and Tristan had their blades locked together; for an instant they battled, eye to eye and hilt to hilt, and then the Duke’s sword, wrenched from his grasp, spun a shining arc through the air to land, point down, far over towards the rebel camp. And Duke Jovelin stood defenceless with Tristan’s blade at his throat.

  Then the rebel warriors set up a shout and broke forward to their leader’s aid; but Jovelin shouted to them where he stood, ‘Back, dogs! Back, I say! I’ll not have my honour blackened for me by my friends!’ And they checked and drew back to their watching line. And to Tristan he said, ‘Tristan of Lothian, it seems that I must yield to you for life or death.’

  Tristan lowered his sword. ‘These are my terms: that you shall bid your men to bring out from your camp enough food to provision Carhaix for one week, or you shall lie in the castle dungeons and we’ll fight on hungry as we are. The choice is yours, my Lord Jovelin.’

  The Duke Jovelin smiled, and they looked at each other not as enemies but simply as two fighting men. And he said, ‘I’ve no liking for dungeons. I choose to provision Carhaix for a week.’

  ‘That is a wise choice, and I for one am glad of it,’ said Tristan. ‘I’m thinking it would be a fine and pleasant thing that the first of the supplies arrives in time for supper.’

  Then Duke Jovelin called out certain of his men and gave them their orders; and by the last light of the sunset and then by the flare of torches, the bags of flour and the barrels of salt meat were brought, and received by the warriors at the castle gates, while Duke Jovelin stood by as Tristan’s prisoner to see it done. And when the last sack and barrel had been carried inside Carhaix, the two champions parted, and the Duke went to where his sword still stood upright in the ground, and plucked it out and walked back to his own camp fires, while Tristan, with the sleeve of his tunic oozing red under his mail, went back into Carhaix.

  Again the first to greet him was Karherdin. ‘I should hate you,’ said Karherdin.

  ‘But you do not,’ said Tristan.

  ‘I do not,’ said the Prince; and he put his arm round Tristan’s shoulders. ‘We shall sup tonight. But before we do, you must have that wound seen to. Come to the women’s quarters, and my sister will tend it for you.’

  So Tristan went with Karherdin to the women’s quarters, behind the Great Hall of the stronghold. A maiden stood beside the fire, drawing a silver bell on a green thread along the floor for a kitten to play with. She had brown hair that fell forward on either side of her face, so that he could not see at first what like she was. But he saw her hands against the crimson stuff of her gown, and they were white and almost transparent as the point-petalled windflowers of the woods.

  Karherdin said, ‘Here is our champion, who has won us another week of eating. He has not come scatheless out of the fight, and I have brought him to you to tend his wound.’ And as she looked up and smiled, he said to Tristan, ‘This is my sister the Princess Iseult.’

  And that was how Tristan first saw Iseult of the White Hands.

  The day after, a messenger got into the castle in secret, bringing word for King Hoel that two of his nephews were hurrying to his aid, with two hundred fighting men, and food to supply the castle for many weeks. Then the old King sent for Tristan and Karherdin and told them the good news. ‘They can scarcely be here before noon tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But from early morning we shall keep a watch; and when they appear, we must sally out to cover them from Jovelin’s warhost and bring them safe into the castle. I shall remain here with twenty men to hold the gate; the command of the rest I give to the both of you together.’

  Next day a short while after noon, King Hoel’s kinsmen were sighted, and the gates were opened and the sally party marched out, Tristan and Karherdin at their head, shoulder to shoulder under the blue and emerald standard of Carhaix.

  They had meant only to cover the two hundred safe into the castle; but Duke Jovelin’s men, on their lower ground, could not see the dust-cloud of the relief force; and seeing only the band that came out through the castle gate, they set up a great shout and sped roaring to the attack. Then King Hoel’s nephews heard the sounds of fighting from afar, and came charging over the hill to take the rebel warhost in the rear. And all at once there was full battle raging across the level ground before the walls of Carhaix.

  Long and savagely they fought, the fortunes of the battle swinging now this way and now that; and at one time Karherdin, cut off from his companions, was surrounded by Duke Jovelin’s men, and in sore danger of being cut down or taken captive. But Tristan, seeing his desperate peril, charged to his rescue with a band of his own men beside him, and broke through the enemy’s ranks to the Prince’s side.

  Then they turned together upon the enemy, and made a new charge; and this new charge, fiercer and stronger than any that had gone before, broke the battle-mass of Duke Jovelin’s fighting men and swept them from the field.

  Before sunset forty of the rebel chiefs and their men with them were captives, and many more were dead. And Duke Jovelin himself, forced to submit, had sworn on the hilt of his sword to be King Hoel’s loyal man from that day forth, and to restore to him all that he had torn from him by war.

  That night as they sat at meat in the Great Hall of Carhaix, and the Princess and her maidens went among the warriors keeping the wine cup filled, the old King turned to Tristan sitting beside him, and said, ‘Today it was as though I had two sons in battle below our walls. Two nephews, and two sons. And now it is in my mind, if you will have it so, t
o take you for another son indeed.’ And for a moment Tristan was not sure of his meaning. ‘The land has been laid waste because I would not give my daughter to a husband I deemed unworthy. Now the land will grow green again and fires will burn on the hearthstones, and for your part in this, I give her to you, for you are worthy of her.’

  And Tristan saw the Princess Iseult standing before him with a great wine cup in her hands; and this time her face was not hidden by her hair for the thick brown braids were bound back under goldwork for a festival; and he saw the colour flood into her cheeks, deep as the foxgloves of the Cornish woods, and her eyes bright and soft; and he knew that her heart was towards him.

  And he thought, Surely this is a thing that Fate has written on my forehead. My own Iseult is lost to me, and I shall never see her again. Now, here is another Iseult. If I refuse her, she will be shamed, and if I take her, there may be something of happiness for us both, even though it be a happiness with its wings clipped so that it cannot fly. So he said, ‘If the Princess will have it so, then I will have it so, and gladly.’

  And he set his hands over hers on the great wine cup, and bent his head, and drank.

  13

  The Hunting Party

  SO TRISTAN AND Iseult White-hands were married, and for a whole year they lived their lives together. But Tristan never grew to feel for her as a man should feel for his woman; as he would have felt if it had been the other Iseult beside him. He was always kind to her, but there was no fire nor joy nor laughter in the kindness, for all the fire and joy and laughter that had once been in him he had left in Cornwall. Iseult White-hands never complained, never told anyone if she was unhappy, for she was always good at keeping secrets, much better than Iseult of Cornwall had ever been. But Karherdin her brother, who loved her dearly, saw how things were between her and Tristan, and determined to speak with him.